Portrait Of A Platoon

HOW A DOZEN SOLDIERS--OVERWORKED, UNDER FIRE, NERVOUS, PROUD--CHASE INSURGENTS AND TRY TO STAY ALIVE IN ONE OF BAGHDAD'S NASTIEST DISTRICTS

By Romesh Ratnesar and Michael Weisskopf Monday, Dec. 29, 2003
    • JAMES NACHTWEY/VII FOR TIME

    NIGHT WATCH: Sgt. Marquette Whiteside of the Survey Platoon, Headquarters Battery, a.k.a. the Tomb Raiders, on patrol in Baghdad

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    The initial shock of Colgan's death has abated, but the soldiers still have to remind themselves that he is gone. His name remains on the satellite-phone bill the platoon updates on a wall of the hooch. "Sometimes I think that I'll wake up," Whiteside says, "and that he's going to walk through the door and get his coffee and watch SportsCenter. And he'll say good morning, and I'll ask him how he's doing. And then I realize, that's never going to happen again."

    --Operation Colgan's Revenge

    DEC. 2: A desert chill cuts through the air as the Tomb Raiders prepare for a pre-dawn raid. The target house belongs to a man called Abu Taha, a former officer in the Fedayeen Saddam militia who is suspected of organizing attacks against the Americans. Since early November, intelligence gained from informants and detainees has yielded a list of 20 individuals in the area who the battalion's commanders believe are involved in financing and coordinating roadside bombings. The effort to hunt them down is dubbed Colgan's Revenge. But few members of the platoon are confident they will find Colgan's killers. "To know you got the guy who planted that IED--that piece will never be available to us," says Buxton.

    In the month since Colgan's death, the soldiers have been slow to warm to his replacement, Van Engelen, a stolid, tobacco-spitting 24-year-old who lacks his predecessor's charisma. "I still ain't used to him," mutters Whiteside. "There's a difference of experience." Buxton has become a more active, though neurotic leader. Tonight he spends half an hour drawing up different seating arrangements in the three humvees. As the Tomb Raiders grease their guns and pack flashlights and zip-ties (for cuffing hands) into their flak vests, Winston, the platoon's weathered senior sergeant, briefs them on Abu Taha, a middle-aged, overweight man who may be a "major supplier" of weapons to the insurgents. The room falls silent as Winston outlines evacuation procedures in the event that the troops encounter resistance at the house. Since Colgan's death, Winston says, the platoon's anxiety has grown. Every piece of trash now looks like a hidden bomb. "Everyone is afraid," he says. "If they're not, they're lying. People are cringing." Some soldiers have turned to God. Whiteside reads Scripture and recites the Lord's Prayer before leaving the gates. On the day of Colgan's death, Kamont, a lapsed Baptist who admits to once having been a heavy drinker, flew back to Germany on home leave and told his wife he wants their 2-year-old daughter to grow up in a religious household. "When something like this happens," he says, "you need to have someone to pray to."

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